The wedding invitation
by pamy
Summary: Veronica gets an invitation in the mail that gets her thinking. Set somewhere in the beginning of season 3. Veronica POV. Oneshot. Leanne/Jake relationship.


**Don't even ask me where this came from. Just an overactive imagination I guess. I'm pretty sure this never actually happened on the show. Actually I don't think we were ever told what happened to Leanne. Still I didn't like how Jake ended up either so. This is sort of AU I guess. Set somwhere in the beginnign of season 3. **

**Please review. Don't own Veronica Mars. If I did there would already be a movie. **

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It arrived trough the mail.

Three days had passed since the sorority thing. And although Veronica still felt guilty sometimes, at least she had stopped running into those girls. It hadn't been a bad day. Not an exceptionally good one either – _considering she had ended up spending her lunch break with Dick Casablanca's of all people – _but still not a bad day at all. There was nobody in the house when she got there. She didn't think much of it. Her dad was probably working.

Going trough the mail was always the first thing she did.

It was the third letter in the pile. She froze as her eyes wandered over the envelope. It wasn't the name. _Miss Veronica Mars. _It wasn't the fact that she was sure that (apart from her college mail) this was actually the first letter to address her as such. No it was the return sender. It was the name on the envelope. Kane software.

Her breath caught in her throat.

She couldn't imagine why anybody in that company would send her a letter. _Distant memories of almost forgotten letters come up. Lilly. Duncan. Even Jake had once send her an invitation on Kane software paper. _But she hadn't been in contact with them for so long. Perhaps it was nothing. Merely some kind of advertisement. Perhaps it was a letter about the Kane scholarship. The one she didn't get. _She was smart enough to admit that it probably wasn't the later. If it was it probably would have arrived a long time ago. _

She turned the envelope around and went to open it.

And froze almost immediately. It's not that she was afraid of opening a simple letter. It's just who the letter was from. So many bad memories were associated with Kane software. Perhaps it was Clarence Weidman or Celeste trying to threaten her again. Perhaps it was Jake. She took a deep breath in an attempt to get herself to calm down. She had to open the letter. She knew this. If she did not she would wonder about it for the rest of her life. Still it didn't mean she wanted to.

She however did figure that it was best to rip of the band-aid at once.

She opened the letter without allowing herself to think about it. Not even for a second. It wasn't advertisement. It wasn't a threat. It wasn't a letter about the scholar ship either. No it was much worse. She hadn't been expecting this. Or perhaps in a way she had _– or at least she should have – _been expecting it.

It was a wedding invitation.

She sat there several minutes in complete silence. Staring at the words on the page. She knew this would happen someday. She hadn't really expected them to stay away from each other. Still there it was. Without a warning. The proof. She had it in her hand. She had known for years but now she had it on black and white. Written on paper. And God she wish she didn't. Her eyes kept staring at the first sentence. She hadn't even read the rest of the page. She was trying. Really trying to have the meaning sink in. It didn't really work. Or perhaps it did. And she was just in shock.

_Jake Kane and Leanne Reynolds invite you to their wedding on…._

There it was. Black on white. After so many years. The truth. Finally acknowledge. In the back of her mind she wondered whatever had happened to Celeste. She pushed the thought away almost immediately. Thought of one Kane adult was more than enough for one day. Thinking about it later she couldn't possibly tell anyone how long she sat there staring at the letter. Wondering what to do next.

Finally after what seemed like an eternity she read the rest of the letter.

They were getting married. They were getting married. Maybe if she repeated it a hundred times she would get used to the idea. Married. She took a deep breath. Attempting to calm herself down. Eventually she got up. Deciding that cooking right now was probably not a good idea, she opted for going to her room instead. She found herself lying on the bed not much later.

The words kept going round and round in her head.

They were getting married. She should have been expecting it. Seen it coming somehow. Still she didn't. She didn't see it coming. It had been so long since she had heard from either of them. Briefly she wondered why they had send her an invitation. Sure she was Leanne's daughter. But it's not like she had really bothered to be a part of her life before this. She had left. Tears shine in her eyes as she begins to truly realize what this means.

It means she will finally have the family she always whished she had.

She would have the man of her dreams. A husband. Who would always be there for her. Somebody who wasn't her dad _– she still couldn't understand how Leanne had never been able to love such a good and kind man like her father - _and she would have the children she always wanted. The children they always wanted. Together the both of them. There would be no Veronica. Because if she was honest with herself she didn't' expect to be a part of her mother's life again. She didn't.

She needed to talk to someone.

But though she had great friends, she didn't have many of them. Logan and Dick were of somewhere doing God knows what – _and if she's honest with herself she's pretty sure she probably doesn't want to know – _and Wallace, deer sweet Wallace, is studying for his big test. And though she is sure he would have listened to her, and to some extend understood her, she wouldn't do it to him. She was sure Weevil was still in jail – _it's not like she really would have talked to him about this anyway – _and then of course there was Mac – _but Mac was helping Parker. And admittedly Parker's problem was definitely bigger then hers. After all the fact that her alcoholic mother who had abandoned her years ago was marrying the father of her dead best friend and her boyfriend who had fled the country was not as big as being raped. Then again the fact that he might have been her father could probably rival it. Especially considering what had happened with Duncan – _and that was it. admittedly she had more friends. None of which she could talk to about this.

Talking to her father was completely out of the question.

He had already been hurt enough by those two. Of course she had to. But Keith wasn't invited she was. She needed someone to talk to. To help her make sense of the mess that was her brain. To help her decide what to do. She could just throw it away. Throw it away and pretend like she had never gotten it. Pretend like it had never been there. That she didn't know what was going to happen. Forget she ever read those words. She could throw it away. But that would be running away from her problems.

And Veronica Mars didn't run away from her problems.

It's like there were two sides. Two conflicting feelings inside of her. Battling to be the winner. And the truth was she didn't know. She didn't know what she was supposed to do know. A part of her _- admittedly at this particular moment the smallest part – _was telling her to go. This was her mother. And she was happy. Maybe this even meant she had finally given up the drinking. It's not like she hadn't gone in search for her mother before. She could try to reconnect. She had been invited after all. That had to mean she was wanted there.

And perhaps that was the biggest problem she had.

She couldn't understand why. Sure she was the daughter. But it's not like Leanne made a point of that before. She hadn't even shown up for her own daughter's graduation. So why send a letter now? She had disappeared and not even tried to contact her. Maybe this was her first attempt. If it was, it wasn't a very good one. All it did was make her remember why exactly she was mad at the two of them again. There are no more tears in her eyes.

She figures she's cried enough because of them anyway.

Or maybe it was just guilt. Guilt for not being there for her daughter. If it was guilt that had compelled her to invite her only daughter to her wedding, then Veronica wasn't sure if she wanted something to do with it. Maybe it was just courtesy. Maybe they didn't really want her to come, but they were just inviting her to be kind. So that she wouldn't feel completely left out. Maybe they were expecting her to decline the invitation.

But Veronica didn't know what to do.

It was just a piece of paper. Just some words arranged in sentences that were starting to make sense to her. It didn't tell her anything. If her mom would have bothered to call – _not that she was holding her breath on that one – _she could have made some sense of it all. It would have helped her to decide. But all she had was a piece of papers. With words on them. Words that she somehow always knew would someday come yet deluded herself into thinking they wouldn't.

Conflicting emotions. Two choices. No idea which one was right.

The biggest part of her – _the hurt part. The one who still remembered how easy it had been for Leanne to walk out on her. Twice (though admittedly she had kicked her out the second time) – _was leaning towards not going. Just throwing the letter away. And pretending it was never there. After all her mother had made her choice pretty obvious. In every chance she got she had chosen Jake Kane over her. In some form. She hadn't even come to her graduation, even though Veronica searched the crowd twice for her. In a pathetic believe she might actually show up.

Leanne was her mother after all.

Was it so wrong for her to want her there? For veronica to somehow want to believe she was actually loved? She didn't think so. Then again Veronica had been wrong before. Her eyes wondered over to the letter yet again. Thoughts kept swimming trough her head. A voice inside her head – _she doesn't really recognize it, though something tells her she probably should. It will come to her once she's calmer – _tell her to go. Go or she will probably regret it for the rest of her life. Who cares if they wanted her there or not. They had invited her. If they hadn't really wanted her there, they shouldn't have bothered at all.

She noticed something else on the card.

There was no phone number. No way to contact them. She couldn't make a decision. But now she couldn't tell them what the decision was either. If she let them know she was coming and changed her mind later, she would have to go regardless. The same would happen the other way around. But there was no way to contact them regardless. It's not like she knew where they were. It's not like she could contact them. It looked like they were leaving the choice all up to her.

But she couldn't choose.

Either way she went it looked like it would end in disaster. She was sure of it. If she went, it would hurt her. It would make her realize what had happened. It would make her suffer all over again. That annoying voice came back telling her to just give Leanne a second chance. But that was just is wasn't it. Veronica had given her a second chance. And a third. By now she had given her mother so many chances – _she had come up with so many excuses – _she wasn't even really sure how many. To many. She knew they had probably past the point of not return a long time ago.

But this was her mother. Veronica just felt that for once she should be reaching out.

And sure in some way this invitation could be considered reaching out. But it's not what she wanted. She had spend months trying to find her. She had gone across the country. She had spend all of her money trying to get her mother into rehab. And all her mother did was send her an invitation. With no clear inclination towards the reasoning behind it. She couldn't choose. She couldn't. Every five minutes she kept changing her mind. Maybe she just needed to sleep on it.

She put the paper away and turned of the light. It took her hours to fall asleep.

Weeks later and the day had finally arrived.

She had opted for going after all. Not for her mother. But for herself. She knew if she didn't go to her mother's funeral she would never be able to forgive herself. She would regret it forever. Still unsure of whether or not they wanted her to come though. She sat in the back of the church. Not wanting to call to much attention to her. IN case she decided to leave immediately after the wedding.

She was sitting there all alone. Hoping nobody would recognize her.

For a brief second she wondered yet again what had happened to Celeste. But she pushed the thought away. They had gotten a divorce. That much was obvious. And she hoped that wherever Celeste was she had found the happiness that had been denied to her for so long. The music of the ceremony started and Veronica looked up. She had opted for coming alone. It's not like nobody had offered to come with her.

Her father had offered when she told him.

Btu she had seen it in his eyes. It would have been a big sacrifice. And he would have done it for her. But she would never do that to him. After all he had been married to her for several years. She declined Logan's offer to. It's not that she didn't want to take him. She just didn't know how Jake would react to seeing him. After all he was Aaron's son. It was wrong but he might think like that. And somehow she thought that taking Logan and introducing him as her boyfriend to her ex-boyfriend – _actually she wasn't really sure about this one. Technically seen they hadn't broken up. They hadn't said those words. She had still called him her boyfriend for weeks after that. They had said there goodbyes, and the knowledge he was never coming back had ended everything forever she knew that, they just technically seen hadn't broken up. Not that she would think about that often – _father, while said new boyfriend was also his son's best friend, was just asking for trouble.

Mac was still with Parker. Wallace was studying again (she was beginning to wonder what had happened to her best friend).

She couldn't help but notice how beautiful her mother looked. Or how happy they were when they finally got married. And she whished she could stand in the front. Together with Lilly and Duncan; Standing where they should have stood. Sure this wasn't a wedding she would have imagined going to, but it was better than anything else that had happened. She left her present and a card on one of the tables at the reception hall. Then she left. Before anyone had truly seen her.

She had come to see her mother get married. She just wasn't ready to talk to her yet.

Maybe someday she would be.


End file.
